International Support

Provides details of our support for International Projects

The Club helps many organisations and people world-wide.
Currently the two main projects organised by the International Committee are
School in the Bag and Solar Aid.

The Committee are currently fundraising to provide school
bags for children in Nepal and through the charity” School in a Bag” and also to
provide solar lighting to schools and health clinics in Zambia through the
charity “Solar Aid”.

SOLAR AID

The ‘Solar Aid’ project has been led by PP Peter Keenan.
Much has been achieved. Over the last twelve months solar lights have been
purchased with Club funds, and initially partly with money from a District
Grant, for lamps for rural Zambia.

Peter has been able to purchase lamps from the charity
SolarAid and these have been distributed by our Rotary colleagues from the
Rotary Club of Lusaka. The most recent distribution was made to light up
fourteen large clinics and twelve smaller ones, twenty six in total, covering a
large area in and around the Lusaka province.

Previously none of these clinics had any electricity at all.
At night patients were attended to, including mothers delivering babies, in
candle light or by kerosene lamp light. Solar lamps have also been given to
Traditional Health Workers, rural midwives for use when delivering babies in
the mothers’ own homes. The lights for the 26 clinics were purchased at a cost
of just short of £2500 which was provided entirely by the Rotary Club of
Cheltenham North. As a result hundreds of poor Zambians are being benefitted
every night during the usual twelve hours of darkness.

It is fair to say that this is a worthy achievement for the
RCCN 's International Committee particularly when added to what was achieved
initially in partnership with the Rotary Club of Cleeve Vale, when solar lights
were also distributed to four very poor schools and orphanages. The vital
factor in each case has been the link between the charity SolarAid here and
through its locally experienced staff in Lusaka, with the Rotary Club of
Lusaka, and the Rotary Clubs here which provided the modest funds needed so
that all the lights were given not sold.

Needless to say a number of people, other than ourselves,
have ensured the success so far. Members of the Rotary Club of Lusaka and
devoted SolarAid staff, particularly Karla Kanyanga at their Lusaka offices
and, in the case of the clinics, the doctor in overall charge, Dr. Marjie, all
of whom have ensured that the lights were fitted and functioning properly. When
the first clinic lights were installed Dr. Marjie was so grateful she just
burst into tears !

January 2018 Further project bringing Solar light to Zambia.

Our
Club, as in 2016 and 2017, is joining with the Rotary Club of Lusaka, this year
largely through its satellite Rotaract Club , and the charity SolarAid,
operating through its branch.

This
year's project is to provide with solar light, at a cost to the Club of circa
£3500, a further 150 orphaned children in 3 orphanages and 28 schools which
cater to over 10,000 students in Zambia.

It is distributing solar lights to impoverished
orphanages and schools in a radius of some 200 miles around Lusaka city. The
projects are making a major contribution to the spread of solar lights
throughout Zambia where, those outside the main towns, are without electricity
and reliant on expensive, dangerous and unhealthy kerosene lamps, or candles,
during the daily 12 hours of darkness throughout the year.

A
total of 616 SM100 solar lights were distributed in 2016 -7 to very poor
orphanages and schools, some of the day school children being allowed to take
one home at night. In 2017 a total of 26 health clinics were supplied with much
larger appropriate sized lights - babies, for example, could then be delivered
with adequate light instead of bad kerosene or candle light.

SCHOOL IN A BAG

We have successfully provided
school bags to the Shree Kalika Higher Secondary School in Tekanpur, Nepal. All
the children at this school currently have a bag and the Committee have
committed themselves to provide bags for their new academic intake.

Tekanpur is 51 miles from
Katmandu as the crow flies! Nepal suffered two major earthquakes in 2014. The
first on 25th April had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter Scale and killed
9,000 people and injured 22,000. This was followed on May 12th by a further
quake measuring 7.3 magnitude. Whole villages and much major infrastructure
including schools and roads were completely destroyed.

School in a Bag is run by the
Piers Simon Appeal (PSA), a UK registered charity

based in Somerset that aims to
support victims of disasters worldwide. It was formed by the Simon family
following the death of Piers Simon who sadly drowned in the Tsunami in Thailand
in 2004. School in a Bag has distributed over 72,000 School Bags to children in
thirty four countries. Our fundraising is focused on Nepal.

The school bags are bright red
rucksacks and each contains ten pencils, ten biro pens, twelve colouring
crayons, a pencil case, a 30cm ruler, a maths set, three exercise books
(line/square/plain) and a water bottle and food container and spork. Each bag
is numbered so that every child can recognize their own bag.

Eating utensils are provided in
the bag because often if the children have no method of eating a meal they go
without food. As an additional benefit these bags are being manufactured in
Nepal, thus providing work and reducing transportation costs.

Since the International Committee
was formed in June 2015 the Rotary Club of Cheltenham North has raised for
£5,035 for School in a Bag. This sum has been made up of £1,000 from a Curry
Lunch plus a further £1,000 from our Club, a £750 District Grant which was made
up to £1,800 from our Club funds. £700.87 raised by the parents and pupils of
The King’s Junior School, Gloucester at their annual Carol Service. The
children of The Richard Pate School raised £534.80 on their Charity Day.